Who's in?

It was great for Angela and I to be able to share lunch yesterday with our old friend Graeme; he's over from Melbourne for a week's leave.

Graeme and I have a congregation in Melbourne that is common to our personal histories. It is a place that we love, where there are many good people worshipping and serving God. But it occured to us, with the benefit of hindsight, that it was quite insular. Further, we both think that we were only able to break into that congregation because we were the same as everyone else. We were of the same Salvationist heritage, we were of the same ethnicity and we had some of the same interests.

When we were at the leadership summit last week, one of the Scriptures we looked at was in Luke 15 - the story of the lost son. It struck me that in the end, the ones that were 'in' were the misfits like the lost son. The ones that were 'out' were the supposedly faithful ones - the elder brother - who was too busy sulking in the paddock to enjoy the party. Moreover, the party was paid for out of the elder brother's inheritance!

Let's not lose our inheritance, or the chance to party, through intolerance or a lack of welcome.